


Soldiers: A Collection of Drabbles Following John Watson and Sherlock Holmes

by AlixxBlack



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post-Season 4, Sad Fluff, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:31:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlixxBlack/pseuds/AlixxBlack
Summary: This collection of drabbles depict the importance of the word "Soldiers" to John Watson, Sherlock Holmes, and, consequently, Rosie Watson.





	1. Chapter 1

_Today, we’re soldiers._

 

Life after Eurus was a strange thing for John and Sherlock. Something about their time together always ended up that way. Everything they experienced could be highlighted in statements beginning with those same two words: life after…

 

Life after drugs, Life after war, Life after Reichenbach, Life after The Woman, Life after Mary, Life after Rosie, and then – Life after Eurus.

 

After the hell Eurus put them through, John had to watch Sherlock labor over his family – which he’d once despised – to put them back together. It was difficult to keep away from their affairs, but it was harder still to watch Sherlock find more of the humanity inside of him. That’s when John decided to put up the blackboard.

 

When Sherlock protested the ‘fad décor’ addition in the flat. He took it down and hid it. Then when John put it back, the retired consulting detective began to draw vulgar images on it. After weeks of erasing and replacing, John had come home to Sherlock playing a sad tune to put Rosie down for her nap. Tears streamed down his cheeks through closed eyes. Unsure of how to comfort his friend, John simply wrote one word on the blackboard.

 

_Soldiers._

 

Sherlock didn’t see it right away, but when he did he turned up in John’s bedroom. They sat at the foot of his bed in silence, only their shoulders touching, and enjoyed the quiet vulnerability that they could share in a way only they could understand.


	2. Chapter 2

Neither of them had seen it coming, except for Rosie. She had her mother’s wit and keen eye for details. It had been the first time she invited Shelly over for a play date, but when Shelly’s mother picked her up – there was something about the way John looked at the woman that made it incredibly obvious to her that they would eventually fall in love.

 

It wasn’t right away, not even in the slightest. Two years, about, before they even went on a proper date. Another year before John moved in with her, and another three after that before they married. John wanted to take it slower and be sure, for Rosie, even if she’d been sure from the beginning.

 

In fact, the only person who had doubts was Sherlock, and they were selfish ones. When John went around the flat to ask Sherlock to be his best man, again, he noticed that Sherlock had written the word ‘Soldiers’ hundreds of times on napkins, papers, and mail. It was on the chalkboard, of course, but everywhere else too.

 

From that day forward, John worked as fast as he could towards purchasing a townhouse with a room specifically for Sherlock. When the day came to move him away from 221B Baker Street, Rosie made sure to grab the chalkboard and hang it on Sherlock’s bedroom door.

 

Just in case there was a day where he needed to be a soldier.


	3. Chapter 3

Rosie watched her father crumpled on the floor, his cellphone being crushed against the floor as he pounded it repeatedly. John Watson screamed in defiance of the reality that befell him that day. Most of the morning had already been spent in a panic.

 

Generally speaking, the only person whom was ever home was Shelly’s mother, Audrey. Sherlock often went to the station to assist Molly Hooper with her work while John spent all day at the hospital. Shelly was off to Oxford and Rosie had chosen to just work and travel with her friends until she decided what it was she wanted to do for the rest of her life. The fact that she’d been home the morning her father couldn’t find Audrey was completely by chance.

 

Even if Sherlock would insist otherwise…

 

“NO!” He screamed at the tops of his lungs, now a second-time widow. There would be calls to make, and Rosie’s eyes watered to think that she’d be the one making them. Time moved slowly until the house phone rang from the kitchen. It was Sherlock, calling to see if John had made it home from the hospital yet.

 

“Sherlock,” she began, “We need to be soldiers today.”


	4. Chapter 4

John became a recluse, and so Sherlock partook in the same lifestyle to keep his best friend company. His love for the army doctored was unmatched to all who saw it. After Audrey died, so did Mrs. Hudson. After Mrs. Hudson is was Gregory Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes. Even though these deaths did not come rapidly, they came, and then they went. Each and every loss made John and Sherlock even less inclined to rejoin the outside world.

 

So John wrote his stories to pass time, publishing them in magazines and papers. Eventually he started to compile and expand on original blog posts he’d made on his adventures alongside Sherlock, dreaming to someday have them published as a collection of stories. To fill his time spent at home, Sherlock began a new website that allowed him to review cases for criminals who felt that they were wrongly convicted. Both jobs were mediocre but they paid the bills and gave the men what they needed: solitude.

 

When Rosie would visit, she asked them why they stayed inside. “What sort of soldier becomes recluse?”

 

But she did not know. John stormed out the room with red-stained cheeks and a glistening in his eye while Sherlock lingered. Once he was sure John was not near enough to hear him, he told Rosie what she needed to hear in order to understand.

 

“Your father’s role model was a recluse soldier. The one time he left?” Sherlock questioned, thinking back to the eventful wedding that John and Mary shared nearly twenty-three years ago. His eyes dropped and he hid the smile paired with tears from the daughter he’d come to love as if she were his own. “He was very nearly murdered.”

 

Rosie gasped, and she tried to be humble about the fact that there was much she did not know of her father’s past. As she twisted around to follow her dad, Sherlock grabbed her wrist. He held her in place before he shared his conclusion on the matter.

 

“Your father fears not the world, but himself,” he revealed. “And I am certain he fears the damage he’ll create if he continues to be met with death.”

 

Sherlock blinked and said with a flat and final tone, “So he’s doing what he believes a good soldier does….”


	5. Chapter 5

The gravestone that Sherlock had picked out was modest, and yet as flashy as anything else neighboring John Watson’s grave plot. The stone was light granite flecked with golden glinting specks. His full title was in black lettering: _Doctor John Watson, 5 th Northumberland Fusiliers, Assistant Consulting Detective, Author._

 

Rosie stood behind Sherlock, whom was lying against the tombstone, reading from one of John’s more obscure stories. It was about falling in love – with her mother, Mary Morstan-Watson. She listened, even if she also thought about how her father would not appreciate the whole slew of titles Sherlock insisted be put on his tombstone.

 

Very suddenly, she became accurately aware of Sherlock’s voice. It trembled as he read what she knew to be the final paragraph, “Though she was a woman of secrets and deception, she saw the best in the most important people in my life. In Sherlock Holmes, she saw both a madman and a hero. And in myself, she saw a soldier who never came home from war, because he only wanted to save the world from itself.”

 

“He loved her so much,” Sherlock whispered.

 

Rosie felt her smile go lopsided. She’d never had the pleasure of seeing it but reading it filled in many of the gaps. The time he had wish her was so short, and sometimes Rosie truly thought of Sherlock as more of a motherly figure than even Audrey. So hearing him say how much her father loved her mother? There was nothing more emotionally evocative than that, really, because she’d always thought the truest love there was existed between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

 

“Was he really just a soldier who never came home from war, Sherlock?” Rosie muttered weakly, joining him on the ground and reaching for the book with John’s short stories in it. The next one was about finding love again with Audrey, and having a full family with her and Shelly. Knowing that Shelly had left them, not even a call on holidays, made so much of this painful for her.

 

More than Sherlock knew, she relied upon him being so strong and collected during these difficult months. Rosie mimicked his coping methods so that she could continue to do her job each day without breaking down.

 

“Your father,” Sherlock began, “was the best soldier I knew. He never came home from war, sure, but the war he fought was never over.”


	6. Chapter 6

Plenty of people came to the viewing, it wasn’t exactly private, but Rosie hadn’t been prepared for the number of fans that showed up with flowers and gifts. There were so many that Molly had to request the funeral home to start moving the gifts into a separate room for safekeeping.

 

As the many people floated in and out, tears streaking their cheeks, Rosie remained at the coffin to shake hands and greet the guests. Nobody insulted him, though it had been an easy enough task for most anyone else when he was alive, but Sherlock Holmes’ death was a mighty one for all of London.

 

When the time came for Molly to speak in front of those who chose to attend the burial – an easy one thousand people – it had been Rosie who had to hold her up. Molly had phased out of her life when Audrey and her father married, but she was still an important part of her life. When people began passing away – it had been Molly who sent her favorite chocolates and new books. When she started to worry about her future – it had been Molly that got her into college. And when she thought she couldn’t possibly get out of bed – it had been Molly that showed up to wake her up. In many ways, Molly Hooper was the hidden force in Rosie’s life that kept her going.

 

Molly stepped down from the tiny wooden platform and offered the microphone to Rosie, and she took it confidently. Thousands of pairs of eyes were glued to her. Each person was just as affected as she, even if in a different way. She knew that she could do this and so she took a deep breath before reciting the eulogy she’d been preparing all morning.

 

“Sherlock Holmes was one of my many parents. He was a role model for a lot of people and his death is a loss for more than just my family. Today, all of Britain has lost a good man and a hero. Though Sherlock could be described as many things, there is only one word that I can think of that fits him best. It is a word that embodied the most human of experiences, and a word that my father shared with him during their darkest of hours.” Rosie felt her lip quiver. But she could not stop.

 

These words had to be said; to be shared. So she lifted her free arm and continued with as much power in her voice as she could muster. “John Watson and Sherlock Holmes have famously faced a great many villains. The toll it took on their mental health, their emotional health, and their physical strength is indescribable. I watched they struggle with that turmoil firsthand every single day. Yet, they were never deterred.” Some soft claps from all over the crowd started to fill the air. As more and more people let the words settle in their minds and hearts, the quiet honor became a thunderous applause.

 

Rosie had to nearly shout to finish her eulogy.

 

“And so, to give their memories a proper reception on this somber day, I ask you all one thing. To give honor to my father, John Watson, and his best friend, Sherlock Holmes, promise me just this…” Rosie heard everyone settle down simultaneously. Where she should have felt inclined to cry, she was instead empowered. She felt a smile part her lips and a coolness in her veins.

 

Nothing felt more right than these final words for Sherlock Holmes.

 

“…Never stop being soldiers.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading these drabbles. I wrote these on the fly without really editing them, so if you see mistakes - I'm sorry. I just wanted to get this story out of me to share. Maybe someday in the future I'll have time to go back and clean it up. For now, I just hope that you enjoyed it.


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